Comunione e Liberazione

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Poster of Comunione e Liberazione in St. Peter's Square

Comunione e Liberazione (CL) ( Italian for community and liberation ) is a movement in the Roman Catholic Church .

Currently,  Community and Liberation is present  in around 90 countries on every continent. There is no membership required, only voluntary participation. Therefore it is impossible to give the exact number of members; but it is estimated that there are around 100,000 members worldwide. Community and Liberation  was created in 1954 by the Milanese priest Luigi Giussani and has been led by the Spanish priest Julián Carrón since his death in 2005 .

history

CL leader Julián Carrón

In 1954, the Milanese priest Luigi Giussani gave up his teaching position at the Seminario Maggiore Ambrosiano to teach religion at the Berchet high school in Milan. Under the name Gioventù Studentesca ("student youth") a following developed around him within the Catholic Action . At the end of the 1960s, the name Comunione e Liberazione became predominant for this group .

The growing movement was officially recognized in 1980 by Martino Matronola OSB and in 1982 by Pope John Paul II . After Giussani's death on February 22, 2005, the Spanish priest Julián Carrón took over the leadership of the community.

The movement is most widespread in Italy with around 25,000 members, with the Rimini Meeting hosted by CL counting around 800,000 participants annually.

The movement's best-known members in Italian politics include the former President of the Lombardy Region (1995-2013), Roberto Formigoni , and the former Vice-President of the European Parliament (2004-09) and Defense Minister (2013-14) Mario Mauro .

structure

The structure of CL can be described as hierarchical due to the proclaimed connection of all groups to diakonia , whereby the composition of the presidium around Julian Carrón and the assembly of those responsible is not publicly known.

Comunione e Liberazione continues to target various special target groups with appropriate departments:

  • Comunione e Liberazione Educatori (CLE) for working teachers and educators
  • Comunione e Liberazione Universitari (CLU) for student members
  • Giovani Lavoratori (CLL) for young professionals
  • Gioventù Studentesca (GS) for students from the 8th grade
  • Children or Graal for students from the 4th to the 7th grade

Movement in Germany

Community and Liberation came to the Archbishopric of Freiburg and thus to Germany for the first time in 1979 at the invitation of the then Archbishop Oskar Saier . CL is now represented in several German cities.

The spiritual direction in Germany is the Cologne subsidiar and religion teacher Dr. Gianluca Carlin is the successor of the Cologne pastor Romano Christen, director of the theological convict Collegium Albertinum in Bonn.

Comunione e Liberazione is trying to set up a German counterpart to the Rimini Meeting in Italy with the Rhine Meeting in Cologne . Every year the Rhine meeting has a different topic, to which various speakers from the CL environment are invited, for example the Irish columnist John Waters in 2014 and 2015.

In Germany there are several registered associations that are founded or indirectly managed by CL, including:

  • Cultural initiative traces e. V. as editor of the German-language edition of the international magazine of CL
  • Rhein-Meeting eV as sponsor of the Rhine-Meeting in Cologne
  • Kulturinitiative eV Bruchsal for "promoting and spreading a Christian culture"
  • Support International eV with connections to AVSI and the Luigi Giussani High School in Kampala
  • International Musical Friendship Germany eV

financing

Comunione e Liberazione is financed according to its own statements by a freely selectable regular contribution of the members to the community fund. CL himself says:

“Our movement is a destiny directed friendship. So the contribution to the common fund is an instrument with which we support our friendship in its dimensions of culture, Caritas and mission in a concrete way. It is a very simple gesture of appreciation and love for our goal, because the extent of this commitment is determined by each person in complete freedom. "

Alignment

Publications by CL primarily emphasize the theological work of the founder: Giussanis always paid special attention to the rationality of faith. Pope John Paul II wrote in his message on the occasion of the death of Don Giussani on February 22nd, 2005 that Giussani's “entire apostolic work could be summed up in the open and decisive invitation to a personal encounter with Christ.” The funeral ceremony for Don Giussani took place Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at the time and interpreted the name of the movement in his homily as follows: “In emphasizing freedom as a gift peculiar to faith, Fr. Giussani also told us that freedom requires community in order to achieve true human freedom to be a freedom in truth. "

Comunione e Liberazione presents itself as a movement that wants to educate its members to Christian maturity within the framework of a weekly catechesis , the seminar of the community . According to the movement, this requires the will to read given texts, which are meditated at home and deepened in seminars .

influence

Roberto Formigoni, President of the Lombardy Region (1995-2013)

Comunione e Liberazione is considered an influential organization in Italy, not only in relation to the Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI maintained contact with her, his four housekeepers were also members of the movement. The business association Compagnia delle Opere , founded by Comunione e Liberazione in 1986, represents the link to the Italian economy, especially in Lombardy and generally in northern Italy.

Comunione e Liberazione had with Rete Italia (“Network Italy”), led by Roberto Formigoni and Maurizio Lupi , a “wing” within the center-right Popolo della Libertà (PdL) party of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi . Formigoni was President of the Lombardy Region from 1995 to 2013. Lupi was Vice-President of the Chamber of Deputies from 2006-08 and Minister of Infrastructure and Transport in the Letta and Renzi governments from 2013-15 . After the PdL split at the end of 2013, they joined the Nuovo Centrodestra (NCD) party .

In the context of the Vatileaks affair in 2012, the Comunione e Liberazione was suspected of being involved in disguised events. B. in facilitation payments.

According to media reports , Pope Francis , who was elected on March 13, 2013, is close to Comunione e Liberazione .

criticism

The Wikileaks documents Kissinger Cables published in 2013 report a secret agreement between Luigi Giussani and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1975, according to which the CL was to act as a political instrument against the Partito Comunista Italiano , which is increasingly popular in Italy , and financially in return the USA , especially for PR activities, was funded.

Otto Kalischeuer characterized Comunione e Liberazione 1992 in a Zeit article as “young radicals” in the context of the “ new evangelization ” of Europe. Gordon Urquhart presented them in his book In the Name of the Pope from 1995 - as well as the Neocatechumenate and the Focolare Movement - as a sect-like lay movement that endangers the cohesion of the church. The religious scholar Nina Clara Tiesler described “Community and Liberation” in 2007 in an article for the magazine Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte as an “extremist movement” and placed it in line with the Protestant religious right in the USA and the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria. The journalist Hanspeter Oschwald , who specializes in church topics , counted CL in his 2010 book In the Name of the Holy Father, together with Opus Dei , Legionaries of Christ , Neocatechumenate, the Focolare Movement and the Community of Sant'Egidio, to a reactionary and fundamentalist network, which he believes was part of a reactionary and fundamentalist network during the pontificate Benedict XVI. controlled the Vatican.

literature

  • Anke M. Dadder: Comunione e liberazione. Phenomenology of a New Spiritual Movement . UVK, Konstanz 2002, ISBN 3-89669-770-6
  • Davide Rondoni (ed.): Comunione e liberazione. A movement in the church . Cooperativa Ed. Nuovo Mondo, Milano 1999
  • Luigi Giussani: What is and what does Comunione e Liberazione - Interview with Robi Ronza . Johannes-Verlag, Einsiedeln, 1977.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Movement Comunione e Liberazione (Community and Liberation) - What is CL. Website of Comunione e Liberazione Deutschland, accessed September 26, 2018.
  2. ↑ L. Giussani: What is and what does CL . P. 13, p. 23
  3. ^ Pontifical Council for the Laity : Associazioni internazionali di fedeli - Repertorio. As of 2004, entry Fraternità di Comunione e Liberazione.
  4. ↑ a b http://de.clonline.org/default.asp?id=533
  5. ^ CL opening day Munich 2013, issued flyer.
  6. ↑ http://www.kkn.de/neu0308/seelsorge/seelsorgeteam.html
  7. ↑ http://www.rhein-meeting.org/
  8. ↑ Archive link ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ http://www.cl-deutschland.de/spuren/index.php
  10. ↑ http://www.imf-deutschland.de/
  11. ↑ http://gemeinschaftundbefreiung.at/diebewendung/grundlegendegesten.htm#fondocomune
  12. ^ CL opening day Munich 2013, issued flyer.
  13. ↑ http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/letters/2005/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_20050222_don-giussani_ge.html
  14. ↑ http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20050224_homily-giussani_ge.html
  15. ↑ http://de.clonline.org/default.asp?id=533&id_n=14043
  16. ↑ Stefan Berg, Christoph Schult, Alexander Smoltczyk, Michael Sontheimer and Peter Wensierski: Title: “So bitter, so sad” . In: Der Spiegel . No. 6 , 2009 ( online ).
  17. ↑ Milan cardinal reprimands the president of Comunione e Liberazione. In: kath.net , June 13, 2012.
  18. ↑ Pope budget back completely ( Memento of 27 April 2016 Internet Archive ), Südwestpresse from April 21, 2011
  19. ^ Henning Klüver : Instructions for use for Milan. With Lombardy. Piper, Munich 2014.
  20. ↑ Andrea Ceron: Leaders, Factions and the Game of Intra-Party Politics. Routledge, Abingdon (Oxon) / New York 2019, Kapitel, Kapitel The determinants of factionalism , fn. 15.
  21. ↑ Luisa Brandl: The explosive confession of the Vatican banker. In: Stern , June 12, 2012.
  22. ↑ Barbara Hans: The Surprise Pope. In: Spiegel Online , March 13, 2013.
  23. ↑ WikiLeaks: l'accordo segreto tra Usa e don Giussani per fermare il Pci, sostegno al Movimento Popolare di Roberto Formigoni. In: Huffington Post , April 8, 2013.
  24. ↑ Otto Kalischeuer: The new radicalism of the world religions - Gilles Kepels brilliant study of God's revenge on modernity . In: The time . No. 06/1992 ( online ).
  25. ↑ Gordon Urquhart: In the Name of the Pope. The secretive troops of the Vatican. Munich 1995. Quoted from Hanspeter Oschwald: Catholic Church - The II. Reformation. In: Focus Magazin , No. 1/1996.
  26. ↑ Nina Clara Tiesler: Europeanization of Islam and Islamization of Debates. In: From Politics and Contemporary History , No. 26–27 / 2007.
  27. ↑ Hanspeter Oschwald: In the name of the Holy Father. How fundamentalist powers control the Vatican. Heyne, 2010, ISBN 978-3453167247

Web links